Friday, July 27, 2012

Cornucopia
of Grenades – Please, please, please, leave your grenades at home.Like milk and
cola,grenades and airports do not mix, yet some still keep mixing them together.Please leave them
at home or ship them via your preferred shipper.A grenade belt buckle
was found at Northwest Florida (ECP). A novelty grenade designed to be screwed
onto a gearshift was discovered at Des Moines (DSM).And two inert
grenades were discovered in Orange County (SNA), and another at Denver (DEN) and
yet another at Chicago O’Hare (ORD).Read here
and here on
why inert items cause problems at checkpoints.

Items
in the Strangest Places
– It’s one thing to forget you had a prohibited item in your bag, but when you
intentionally try to sneak it past us, you could wind up being cited or even
arrested by law enforcement. Here are a few examples from this week where
passengers tried to sneak items past our Officers.

A
pocketknife was found concealed in the side lining of the carry-on bag at San
Juan (SJU).

A
3-inch knife was found concealed in the belt buckle of a passenger at Houston
Hobby (HOU).

Yet
again, a passenger tried to conceal marijuana in a jar of peanut butter.
Marijuana stuffed in a jar of peanut butter looks odd on the monitor. We’re not
looking for marijuana, but we have to report it when we come across it. This
time it was at Seattle (SEA).

Multiple
razorblades were detected concealed in the
shoes and wallet of a passenger at Burbank (BUR).

A
6” knife concealed in a metal tube was discovered in Guam (GUM).

Certain
Water Filtration Systems Look Like PipeBombs – I’ve read about this 3 or 4 times
now where a water filtration system looks like a pipe bomb on the X-ray
monitor and the checkpoints/terminals have to be evacuated while the bomb
experts do their thing. So… if you have a water filtration system that is
similar to this one, you might want to consider shipping it or coordinating
with TSA or your airline prior to travel. This time it was discovered in
checked bags at Phoenix (PHX).

People
Say the Darndest Things –
Here is an example of what not to say at the airport. Statements like these not
only delay the people who said them but can also inconvenience lots of other
passengers if the checkpoint or terminal has to be evacuated:

A
passenger approached an Officer at Los Angeles (LAX) and asked: “Would you help
me get a bomb on a plane?”

A
passenger at New Orleans (MSY) told another passenger: “I have explosives in my
bag.”

Miscellaneous
Prohibited Items -
In addition to all of the other prohibited items we find weekly, our Officers
also found firearm components, realistic replica firearms, stun guns, brass
knuckles, ammunition, batons, and a lot of sharp pointy things.

Firearms
- Here are the
firearms our Officers found in carry-on baggage since I posted last Friday.

Unfortunately
these sorts of occurrences are all too frequent which is why we talk about
these finds. Sure, it’s great to share the things that our officers are
finding, but at the same time, each time we find a dangerous item, the
throughput is slowed down and a passenger that likely had no ill intent ends up
with a citation or in some cases is even arrested. This is a friendly reminder
to please leave these items at home. Just because we find a prohibited item on
an individual does not mean they had bad intentions, that's for the law
enforcement officer to decide. In many cases, people simply forgot they had
these items.